High Peak Marathon
Friday night out!
Janet McIver, Dark Peak-Accelerate Ladies / 31.03.2008
(The Team of Debbie Smith, Janet McIver, Kirsty Bryan-Jones and Rachael Horn is a combination of Dark Peak Ladies Fell Running Club and Team Accelerate Adventure Racing. The Team not only won the Ladies class of the High Peak Marathon, but also substantially lowered the ladies record by over 2 hours!)I don’t quite know how I ended up standing on the start line of the High Peak Marathon. I’ve spent years avoiding it but for whatever reason this year I failed to come up with a suitable excuse. So there I was on the start line, not thinking about racing but thinking about the warm bed I’d left behind.
Team tactics were clear, I was to carry heavy things like tents and torch batteries, Kirsty was in charge of navigation, Debbie was responsible for team moral and pace setting, whilst Rachel was our local knowledge expert having completed the race twice before. Our game plan was simple- jogging on the flats and downs, no running uphill, and no stopping to adjust clothes or other pfaffing about.
At 11.13pm we set off, my hopes of keeping dry feet for the first few hours were soon dashed as we crossed the fields below Hollins Cross, which were soggy. The next challenge was Rachel’s torch packing up, but in no time at all and without even stopping she swapped to a back and away we went.
Lose Hill, Win Hill and High Neb came and went, and we arrived at Moscar feeling like we were making good progress. We refilled water bottles and then headed off down the A57. It seemed very strange to jog down the dashed white line with no cars in sight.
Debbie took her role seriously along Derwent Edge and we pushed on strongly to Sheepfold Clough. Here Kirsty clicked into ‘navigator mode’ and we headed off across the peat hags.
Somewhere near Swains Head, Kirsty issued a warning “watch out for the man eating bog, it’s near here somewhere� she announced knowledgeably. With the next step she disappeared to her waist and had to resort to the recently named sport of bog-swimming. Once Kirsty was back on dryish land we pushed on.
Endless bogs followed and then at around 3am (just to boost moral!) heavy rain and wind. We all had our quiet moments as we plodded onwards wondering what on Earth we were doing.
Somewhere near Wainstones we saw some other teams circling around. We joined in for a while before finally spotting the Wainstones. Then off we went down the Pennine Way hitting Snake Pass in time for breakfast.See All Event Posts
